Arundhati Joy

Not a typo. 'Joy' was what fiction lovers felt when they heard news that Arundhati Roy, writer of "the great soaring masterpiece of 1997", The God of Small Things - is returning to fiction. In yesterday's Guardian, she discusses some of the reasons for her wonderful about-turn, including the fact the non-violent activism, the kind of which she has been active in in India for the past decade - has failed in her country. She returns to literature, for some respite.

My favourite passage in The God of Small Things, is in the chapter 'Kochu Thomban', and it goes...

"The secret of Great Stories is that they have no secrets... the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably... In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again."

A bit like Roy's Booker winning novel actually. I was happy to see this passage quoted (to a point) in The Guardian piece. Your many million readers say welcome back, Ms Roy.